Berlin Police Ban Jewish Meetings; Mob Violence Increases

June 20, 1938

BERLIN (Jun. 19)

Police yesterday placed a week-end ban on all Jewish gatherings, as mob violence increased and the anti-Jewish crusade gathered momentum on all fronts.

In the Jewish quarters in Berlin’s north and east ends, where repeated window smashing and plundering occurred in the last 24 hours, Jewish stores were closed today and few Jews were seen in the streets.

Some quarters believed that the prohibition on Jewish meetings would be made permanent. The ban resulted in the indefinite postponement of the football championship play-offs of the Maccabi, Jewish sports organization.

This morning witnessed the first application of the law paving the way for complete identification of Jewish shops. Painters, under official orders, were busy lettering the names of Jewish proprietors on shop-windows, In some cases in letters two feet high. To avoid confusion, “Aryan” shops are painting “Aryan Enterprise” on their windows.

Another blow was struck at already harassed Jewish house-owners and tenants when the Army high Command ordered all soldiers and military employes not to remain in houses of which Jews are owners or fellow-dwellers. The order decrees that in such cases the military man must move out as soon as his lease permits. Exceptions are allowed where proof is submitted that no other sleeping quarters are available at a similar price.

Meanwhile, arrests of Jews continued. Cases were reported in which Jews driving automobiles were stopped by traffic police and sent to the Alexanderplatz police head quarters for no cause whatever. The traffic policeman was busy at the intersection of Uhlandstrasse and the Kurfuerstendamm carrying on this practice. Pedestrians crossing against the lights were asked if they were Jews, and if the reply was affirmative, they were sent to police headquarters.

It is noteworthy that since the wave of arrests started Monday no families have received definite word from the police regarding the fate of the arrested. It was reliably reported that a great number of prisoners were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar and other camps.

Jews are so terrorized by the menace of arrest that many do not sleep at home but wander from friend to friend or to a hotel. Some leave their beds at three o’clock in the morning and walk the streets, fearing that a policeman call at their homes the early hours of the morning. This is particularly true of Jews who at one time or another suffered punishment at the hands of the authorities. This group seems to continue to bear the brunt of police activity.

Friday nigh’s excesses occurred on Frankfurterallee in the North End, where Jewish shopwindows were broken and, in some instance, according to neighbors, crowds surged into the stores and walked out with their arms loaded with merchandise. According to one witness, street cars, buses and subways were hopelessly jammed during the raiding hours because every boarding passenger carried a large bundle of clothes, shoes, hardware and other merchandise.

Late Friday afternoon a group of children, led by a 12-year-old who flourished a paint can and brush, moved down Frankfurterstrasse, painting a shield of david on Jewish windows, scrawling “Pig Jew” and often adding a sketch of gallows with a hanging figure labeled “Jew.”

The group was followed by a crowd of adults laughing, cheering and offering suggestions. Where the children were not sure whether the owner of a shop was Jewish, they entered the store and asked. In one case they scrawled the word “Rassenschande” (race defilement) on a store front.

Frequently during the course of the procession down the street uniformed storm troopers passed and made no attempt to interfere. Police appeared and likewise took no action.